Brooks Automation Earnings Preview

Brooks Automation (NAS: BRKS) didn't hit the Street's expectations last quarter, but investors hope that it will rebound this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Thursday. Brooks Automation is a provider of automation, vacuum, and instrumentation solutions, and is a valued business partner to original equipment manufacturers and users throughout the world.

What analysts say:

Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Brooks Automation with four of seven analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Brooks Automation as much as competitor Cohu overall. Two out of two analysts rate Cohu a buy compared with two of seven for Brooks Automation. Analysts still rate the stock a Hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared with three months ago.

Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $181.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 15.5% from the year-ago quarter.

Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.36 per share. Estimates range from $0.35 to $0.37.

What our community says:CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 92.4% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 89.5% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Brooks Automation, Inc.(USA, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 43 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Brooks Automation, Inc.(USA, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:The company upped its gross margin by 5.8 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 29.9% while cost of sales rose 19.7% to $131 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q2

Q1

Q4

Q3

Gross Margin

32%

32.1%

30.4%

29.3%

Operating Margin

13.9%

13.3%

12.3%

10.5%

Net Margin

13.8%

13.2%

13.3%

10.6%

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